Return to Ravenholm

Over the past few weeks I've been replaying Valve's seminal FPS, Half-life 2.

When I first played through it six years ago it seemed unbelievably impressive. It had a complex and beautifully detailed world, an incredible story and superb physics that let you pick up, push and smash objects to defeat enemies and solve puzzles. I'd simply never seen anything like it before.

Back then, I was (barely) running it in 800x600 with everything turned down to the lowest setting and it still impressed the hell out of me. On my most recent run through I've had literally everything turned up to it's absolute highest setting while happily cranking out a totally rock-solid triple figure frame rate and I'm still really impressed. True, it has had some minor graphical updates in the intervening years, but what really keeps things looking good is the excellent art style and attention to detail rather than how much fancy geometry or lighting the engine is throwing about.

The gameplay, too, feels just as fresh and current as it did back when it launched in 2004 and it's this sense that it could have been released yesterday rather than over half a decade ago that has shocked me the most. I hadn't really thought about it before, but while the FPS multiplayer experience continues to evolve, the story-driven single player FPS game has largely stagnated. Indeed, compared to many recent single player FPS games, Half-life 2 is far more experimental and unique in the implementation of it's mechanics and the richness and intelligence of the story telling.

While anything as fantastic as the Half-life series is going to be difficult to beat, it's kind of disturbing that most developers haven't even really tried. They now seem to view the offline portion of their FPS games simply as an accoutrement to the online multiplayer modes rather than as an equally important component worthy of as much attention.

Probably the most interesting and unusual single player FPS experience I've had since Half-life 2 is (yes, you guessed it!) Valve's own Portal, and while it doesn't really fit into the narrow definition of a shooter, I can't think of a better example of the huge untapped potential that exists in both gameplay and story.

Looking ahead into 2011, there are a few developers such as Splash Damage, the makers of Brink, who are working to merge the single player campaign and multiplayer component into one overaching experience where the game dynamically adapts the gameplay and narrative to fit your play style whether you're currently online or off. As compelling an idea as it sounds, there are still fundamental problems with trying to fit an immersive single player experience into a multiplayer setting. The dozens of people you could be interacting with at any time are essentially unpredictable, and if I've learnt anything from playing the likes of Left4Dead it is that it takes only one of them acting like an idiot to spoil the experience for everyone else.